


Sweater Weather

by greyskygirl, SevereStorms, superstringtheory



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Belly Kink, Feeding Kink, Further Tags as events warrant, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stuffing, Weight Gain, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:18:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskygirl/pseuds/greyskygirl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevereStorms/pseuds/SevereStorms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: Steve, Bucky, and a sweater that doesn't fit now and likely never will. A birthday fic for the divine  wreckingthefinite, who deserves all the good things in life - meaning absolutely the chubbiest Bucky our collective imaginations can conjure into existence and the most ill-fitting sweater Steve could find for him. Happy Birthday, darling!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreckingthefinite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingthefinite/gifts).



“So, is this my 30th birthday?” Bucky asks. “Or my 100th?”

“Everyone made a pretty big deal out of celebrating my 99th,” Steve says. “So I think it’s 100. Technically. But you look great, don’t worry about it. Not a day over 99.” 

“Gee, thanks,” says Bucky, picking at the ribbon on the elegantly-wrapped package in front of him. “Try not to kill me with kindness, I’m only an old man. So do I get to open my present now, or what?” 

“Cake first,” Steve says. “Then presents.” 

Bucky watches Steve as he hurries toward the kitchen of his modest apartment, and can smell the matches burning as Steve lights the candles on the cake. “There’d better not be a hundred candles on that damn thing,” he calls. “Or you’ll pay for it next July.” 

He settles back on the sofa, feeling pleasantly full after dinner, which Steve had ordered from the steakhouse around the corner. Everything had been delicious, but then, Bucky finds a lot of things delicious, now. He’d never expected to be able to eat at a restaurant again, or even to be able to show his face in public without drawing the attention of the combined tactical paramilitary forces of the entire world. This – this freedom, the restoration of his life, his memories, of some form of calm and normalcy after the century he’d just lived through? It’s already the best gift he’s ever received. 

Not that he ever expected Steve to be satisfied with simply restoring his life, liberty, and the freedom to pursue whatever happiness he could. He glances down at the gift on the coffee table again. It’s wrapped in satiny orange paper, with a chocolate-brown ribbon bearing the legend _Hermes – Paris._

Steve arrives with the cake, drenched in gleaming, dark chocolate frosting, and bearing only one candle in the shape of the number 30, right in the center. 

“Do you want me to sing the birthday song?” Steve asks. 

“Fuck you,” Bucky says, grinning and blowing out the candle. “I can’t believe that you’re still such a punk. How’d you manage to keep that up?” 

“The memories of your jerkiness kept me going strong.” Steve slices off a huge chunk of cake – chocolate with raspberry cream filling – and transfers it to a plate. “Hope this is okay,” he says. 

“Are you kidding? It’s my favorite.” 

“You say that about everything.” 

“That’s because everything’s my favorite,” Bucky says, taking a huge bite of cake. He watches Steve carefully as he works his way through the cake. Steve takes a much smaller piece, and ends up pushing it around with his fork. It’s not the first time Bucky’s noticed this, the odd fascination Steve seems to have with his eating habits. There’s nothing alarming about it, it’s just there, this weird little undercurrent at every mealtime. 

Without even really meaning to, Bucky notes the way Steve’s eyes flick up with every movement of Bucky’s fork, the way they fixate on his mouth. The way his breathing speeds up a little, the way the pulse in the hollow of his throat seems to beat just that tiny bit faster. It’s subtle; Steve’s enhanced, and he’s always been good at hiding discomfort. But Bucky sees it, and wonders what to make of it. 

As a kind of experiment, he cuts off another huge slice of cake as soon as he finishes the first, and yes, the response quickens, just that little bit more noticeable as he works through his second piece of cake. 

“So,” he says, when he finishes off the second piece and sets his plate aside. “Can I open it? The suspense is killing me.” 

“Yes, of course. Happy Birthday, Buck.” 

Bucky pulls the ribbon loose and unwraps the paper carefully, folding it neatly once he slides it free. He lifts the lid and withdraws the contents. It’s a sweater, dark blue, the fabric so luxuriantly soft it defies the imagination. 

“I don’t know if you remember,” Steve says quickly, sounding a little nervous. “When we were in Paris, with the guys, back in 44 -” 

“That little shop on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore,” Bucky says. “God, that winter was fucking cold, you remember how cold it was?” 

“You saw a sweater just like this, and the shopkeeper offered it to us at half price. You said you’d rather freeze than funnel money to the Vichy French.” 

“You’re sure they’re not profiting from this?” 

“Nope, just good old-fashioned capitalists,” Steve says. “Which isn’t quite as bad. Probably.” 

“I can’t believe this place is still in business,” Bucky says. “When were you in Paris?” 

“They have a store in Manhattan now,” Steve says. “Two, actually.” 

“You actually went to Manhattan? For me? I’m even more impressed.” He feels a little awkward, suddenly. It’s a beautiful, indulgent, thoughtful gift, one that only Steve could give, and he’s more touched than he can say. Literally. He and Steve have always danced around their deeper feelings for one another, and now, anything other than heartfelt thanks feels like too little, but saying anything at all is too much. 

“You going to try it on?” Steve asks. “They take exchanges, so if it’s the wrong size…” 

Bucky looks at the sweater, its fine fabric gleaming silkily in his hands. It looks about right to him, but he shrugs and shoves himself up from the sofa, heading for the bathroom, where he pulls it on over his head. 

It’s not quite a perfect fit. 

It’s fine across the shoulders, which is something, considering how broad he is in that direction. But he’s even broader in other directions, and the sweater pulls a little tight across his middle, which has, he can now see, gotten a little bigger since he’d come out of cryo. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s enough that his once-flat belly now curves outward, ever so slightly. Or maybe it’s just that he’d had a big dinner? 

It just manages to cover him and graze the waistband of his jeans. Just. He heaves a sigh, and watches as an inch – possibly a little more - of his t-shirt is exposed between the bottom of the sweater and the top of his jeans. 

He considers, for an instant, just telling Steve it doesn’t fit, and exchanging it. But this is the one Steve picked out for him, the one that had made him think of Bucky, the one he’d chosen. And surely, this feeling like he’s got a bottomless pit inside him, this fascination with food, will fade over time? By next fall, when the weather’s cool enough for cashmere, he’ll probably have slimmed back down. 

He carefully peels the sweater off, folds it, and smooths down the front of his shirt before returning to the living room. “It’s perfect,” he says. 

*

As he watches Bucky leave, Steve can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

The evening had gone well, and Bucky had seemed to enjoy himself. He’s more himself every day, and it makes Steve happier than he’d thought possible, at least since he came out of the ice. 

But he’d wanted…well. He’d wanted to see Bucky in the sweater. 

_You wanted to see him not fitting in the sweater,_ he corrects himself. _You wanted to see just how tight that sweater was going to be. Weirdo._

When he’d bought it, he’d genuinely thought it was going to fit – and it probably would have, if he’d given it to him in December, when he’d made the purchase. But then the last two months had happened, and he’d known – or at least strongly suspected – that he should exchange it before Bucky’s birthday. 

But he hadn’t wanted to. 

_You wanted to feed him an absurdly large dinner and that entire cake and then stuff him into a too-small sweater,_ his mind supplies, unhelpfully. _You wanted to see that beautiful fabric stretched across his belly._ “God,” he says aloud, because that’s exactly it, and inadvertently, innocently, Bucky gratifies him every time they’re together, eating everything Steve puts in front of him and asking for more. 

Bucky’d always been a big eater, and – Steve forces himself to admit this, too – he’d always liked it. It had felt like Bucky was showing off for him, a little, when they were kids back before the war, something he did just for Steve. “You gonna eat that?” he’d ask, when they were at Bucky’s house, his mother piling the table with one of the delicious meals she’d managed to cobble together, even during the worst of the Depression. Or at the automat, when he’d take a handful of nickels and spend them all on slices of pie at the L &L. 

And now, portion sizes are positively ludicrous, a single meal often comprising more food than an entire family would’ve eaten back in the ‘30s, but Bucky still manages to get through it all, sometimes eating so much that they have to linger, sipping coffee, for half an hour so Bucky can digest enough to stand up. 

_Everything’s my favorite,_ he’d said, and that really seems to be the case, and Steve loves that he’s rediscovered some of his old lust for life. And for food. 

He just wishes it would somehow transform into lust for him. 

***

“You’re incorrigible and you owe me.” Nat saunters into Steve’s apartment, but pauses by the open door. “Say it, or I’m not coming any further into your house.”

Steve sighs. “Fine. I’m incorrigible and I owe you. You happy?” 

“Getting there.” Nat sits to remove her maroon Doc Martens and then pokes her head into the kitchen. “You said brunch. Where’s brunch? All I see is part of a cake.” 

“Oh.” Steve can feel it, literally _feel_ his ears turning fire-engine red. “Um. Bucky’s bringing over some bagels and cream cheese.” 

“Mm.” Natasha doesn’t look wholly satisfied by this answer, and she pads into the kitchen in her stocking feet to take a closer look at the remainder of Bucky’s birthday cake from the previous night. 

Steve follows her, not really wanting to answer any more questions about this-- like about why he’s set the cake out, why Bucky’s bringing over more food, or why Natasha’s really here. 

_She’s a buffer, and admit it, you just want to watch Bucky eat the rest of that cake, on top of a belly full of brunch. Without seeming too weird. But while being exactly that weird._

“Um.” Steve lamely goes about opening drawers and cabinets, setting some plates and utensils out on the table. “That’s the rest of Bucky’s birthday cake. From last night.” 

As if this explains it. 

“I see.” Natasha eyes the cake and then Steve’s face, which he’s hoping doesn’t look as red as it feels. He’s also hoping that it’s not been too obvious that recently he can’t seem to keep his own gaze off of Bucky’s endless hand to mouth of pizza, popcorn, ice cream -- anything and everything that’s been served at recent Avengers get-togethers. 

There’s the obnoxious sound like some mechanized bees dying, and Steve jumps. “I’ll get it.” 

Even after all this time -- but again, what’s a few months of warmth after decades of freezing? -- Steve’s not over seeing Bucky. 

He hulks in the doorway like some indie horror film villain, but when the light from Steve’s apartment washes over his face, he’s anything but. His cheeks have filled out since that first time Steve had seen him, when he was all pale angles and strappy leather. In fact, Bucky now just looks soft all over-- his hair is pulled back into a messy little knot at the nape of his neck, and it showcases his doubling jawline. His broader frame is also showcased once he’s inside the apartment, peeling off a scarf and longer winter coat to reveal a plaid flannel shirt buttoned over a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that Steve knows were not this tight back in December. 

“Hey,” Steve says, and drags his eyes up to Bucky’s face. Said face curls into a smile, and when he looks down, God, that chin truly doubles. It does. It’s not just weird and wishful thinking. 

“Hey yourself.” Bucky bends down to pick up the paper bag he’d been carrying, and brandishes it at Steve. “I brought the bagels and cream cheese. I didn’t know what kind, so I got kind of a lot. For variety. You know.” 

Steve’s breathing picks up pace, just a little. “There’s still cake, too,” he says, before he can lose the nerve. 

“There is, isn’t there,” Bucky says. There’s a little pause, and then Bucky clears his throat and says, “Let’s bring this to the kitchen. I haven’t eaten since last night and I’m starved.” 

***

“There’s a lot here,” Steve says. “Hope you’re hungry, Nat.”

Somehow, Bucky thinks that Steve’s words are a lot more directed at him than at the petite assassin. Steve also seems pretty focused on watching Bucky choose a bagel and then on watching it disappear bite by bite, until Natasha kicks him under the table. 

“Ow,” Steve says, finally looking at his own bagel, half-smeared with cream cheese. “What’d you do that for?” 

“You’re hogging the plain,” Natasha says, “and I was getting hoarse asking you.” 

“Oh. Sorry.” Steve shoves the cream cheese container over her way and then takes a birdlike bite of his own bagel. Bucky can hear his elevated heart rate from here, even over the sound of his own chewing. 

Throughout the meal, Steve continues to seem jumpy and intent on Bucky’s plate, so by his third bagel, Bucky decides that it’s worth pushing it a little. He lazily spreads a copious amount of veggie cream cheese on an everything bagel and takes an enormous bite before leaning back in his chair. 

He starts to unbutton his flannel, slowly, and if Steve’s gaze isn’t tracking that like a fucking laser. 

“Gotta get a little more room if I’m gonna have some cake,” he says, and-- what the hell-- thumbs the button on his jeans, too. 

If he’s honest with himself, this isn’t all for show. The jeans have been cutting into him since he got here, since before he’d shoved down three bagels in quick succession. 

“Nat,” Bucky starts, hand on his belly, “Would you push the cake over my way?” 

He doesn’t miss how Natasha’s glance flicks to Steve before she reaches for the cake. 

Once the cake is in front of him, Bucky carves himself out a huge piece with his own fork and then drags his plate over to the cake and unceremoniously transfers it. 

“You couldn’t wait for me to get the serving utensil?” Steve sounds just slightly exasperated, but with an edge of something else to it-- arousal? Maybe. (Hopefully.) 

“Let him,” Nat chimes in. “It’s his birthday. His cake.” She puts her tiny feet up on the table and leans back in her chair, as if daring Steve to admonish her. 

Bucky takes a huge bite and can’t stop himself from letting out a little moan of pleasure. It’s a really good cake, and he eats three more bites in quick succession without really even thinking about it. 

“You want some?” It seems right to ask, but he already knows that both Steve and Natasha will demur-- there’s that same weird undercurrent here, and Nat’s just watching it all with a nearly invisible smirk on her lips. 

“Nah. It’s your cake, buddy.” Unlike Natasha, who’s the picture of relaxation, Steve looks wound up, like a little tin soldier, if little tin soldiers had physiques in the form of the Golden Ratio and got jumpy around watching their best friends overeat carbs. 

So they sit there. They sit there, and they watch Bucky eat. The rest. Of the cake. 

He eats steadily, eventually not even going through the playact of putting slices onto his plate-- now, he’s just eating off of the cake plate itself, and it’s not like he’s even hungry any more. 

Bucky’s just eating, Steve is watching, and Natasha is watching Steve watch Bucky, a tiny smile playing about her lips. 

By the time Bucky’s on the last few bites of cake, he’s more than a shade uncomfortably full, and he can feel that the zipper on his jeans has worked itself down of its own accord-- well, with some help from his tummy, which feels a little like an overly filled water balloon. 

He hiccups on the last bite, and Natasha takes her feet down from the table and lets her chair drop back onto all of its legs. 

“Aww, poor baby,” she says, and leans over to give his belly a little pat. “Eat too much?” 

“Oof,” Bucky says, shooing Natasha’s hand away when he sees the look of pure jealousy that briefly crosses Steve’s face. He hiccups again. 

“It’s my birthday cake. I can eat too much if I want.” 

“You want to go into the living room?” Steve asks then, in a slightly strangled tone, and Natasha stands fluidly, with the kind of rapid motion Bucky doesn’t feel he’ll be able to manage until after a long nap and some time for digestion. 

He might have a bit of a stomachache, but it was definitely worth it. 

***

“So hey,” Natasha says as Steve’s escorting her to the door. Bucky’s been snoring on the couch for a solid twenty minutes, jeans fully unzipped, t-shirt ridden up so that a slice of belly peeks out.

“Hey yourself.” Steve draws Nat into a hug, and she stands on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. 

“Glad I could come over and watch you almost cream your pants over watching Big, Tall, and Pretty over there glut himself on bread products. It was worth the subway ride.” She breaks their embrace abruptly, waggles her fingers at Steve, and then is out the door. 

Steve sinks into his armchair and tries not to stare at Bucky. 

_Was I really that obvious?_ he texts to Natasha. 

_No_ , she types back immediately, _I just know your tells._

Steve’s about to reply when another message from Natasha pops up. 

_I’m getting to know his, too… and I think he’s showing off. For you. I’d recommend you buy more pastries. A LOT more. ;)_

Another five minutes, Bucky’s still sleeping on the couch, and Steve’s Yelping nearby bakeries and seeing if they deliver. 


End file.
